Conventional drip irrigaters are pressure-reducing devices which are employed to provide a continuous and relatively low-volume water supply to the roots of plants normally at a predetermined drip flow rate. Communication of water to the plants in this fashion has been found to be an excellent means for water conservation while at the same time providing the plants with a water supply that can be tailored in flow, duration, and frequency to the plants being fed.
Various drippers have been developed over the years, with a favored design employing a long tubular hose made of a thermoplastic polymer or some other durable flexible material for communicating water. The conduit or hose employs a plurality of outlet ports or drippers at predetermined distances from one to the other for the irrigation task at hand. Water or water and fertilizer or chemicals the plants require is communicated under pressure through the pipe or hose, wherein it outflows from the drippers or other disbursing components at a predetermined continuous drip rate.
Conventionally available drip irrigaters generally employ a water inflow into a hose that is communicated to a turbulent flow section usually formed by a labyrinth, zig-zag or other pattern, via a plurality of inlet ports from the hose fluid supply. The labyrinth features a plurality of capillaries that give the labyrinth an operative shape, cross section and length, to output water at a predetermined flow rate that is desirable.
From the turbulent flow through the labyrinth, water flows to a discharge chamber which acts as a reservoir to accumulate water returned to a laminar flow, which thereafter water flows to one or a plurality of outlet ports located in the outer surface of the pipe and in the direction of the root of the thirsty plant. A constant drawback of this type of arrangement of irrigaters is the dependence of a single feed communicating water from the hose supply from the inlet ports to the outlet ports and the conventional single-file arrangement of inlet ports, labyrinths, discharge chambers, communicating with downline outlet ports. Also, the requirement to use a labyrinth passageway having water capillaries of respectively narrow diameter to regulate flow increases the dependence of the device on the single labyrinth communicating with the single feed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,191 (Chapin) discloses an elongated fluid distribution hose that features an overlapping hose wall which nests a labyrinth. While Chapin allows for multiple input paths from the interior of the hose to the formed labyrinth between the two walls, it is essentially still linear in construction and thereby limits the space where emitters or drippers might be place in proximity to each other due to the sequentially inline positioning of the filters, labyrinths and discharge chambers.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,308,902 of (Huntley) features a drip irrigation hose that provides emitters with different discharge rates. Huntley, however, employs single fed labyrinths that are situated in-line on the hose and because of the lengths required for the various pressure levels require an in-line or linear arrangement thus limiting the potential spacing of the drippers or emitters to each other.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,382,530 (Perkins) describes a pressure compensating drip irrigation tape using a flexible tube communicating an internal fluid flow to a plurality of secondary flowpaths. All of the secondary flowpaths of Perkins however are linear and thereby limit the proximity of the emitters or drippers to each other based on the size of the labyrinth and reservoir required to feed each dripper at the desired constant rate.
As such, there is an unmet need for a drip irrigation hose or tube system that allows for the drippers to be spaced closer together than the conventional in-line flowpath design of labyrinths will allow. Such a system should provide multiple inputs and hence multiple filters for the inflow of fluid to the labyrinths to prevent clogging. Such a system, providing multiple inflows of fluid to the labyrinth should also provide for turbulent flows to help decrease water pressure. Still further, such a system should provide the additional benefit of lowering or eliminating the disparity of fluid flow rate amongst the sequentially spaced emitters along a drip irrigation conduit.
With respect to the above description, before explaining at least one preferred embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangement of the components and/or steps set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The various apparatus and methods of the invention herein described and disclosed are capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways which will be obvious to those skilled in the art once they review this disclosure. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception upon which this disclosure is based may readily be utilized as a basis for designing of other devices, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present disclosed device. It is important therefore that the objects and claims be regarded as including such equivalent construction and methodology insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Further objectives of this invention will be brought out in the following part of the specification wherein detailed description is for the purpose of fully disclosing the invention without placing limitations thereon.